Not many people talking about this, but we really need to get the word out. The pork spending bill that is now speeding it's way through Congress with the help of three RINO traitors (Specter, Snowe and Collins) contains a socialized medicine provision that we should all be aware of and call our Representatives and Senators about.
In short, this provision will make the federal government the final dicision maker in what treatments your doctor may or may not prescribe. In other words, a bureaucrat will have override authority with the power to say "no" to any treatment even if your doctor says "yes."
Writing for Bloomberg, Betsy McCaughey has this:
The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.
But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”
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And what happens if doctors and hospitals don't want the government to override their decisions?
Read on:
Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)
What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.
The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.
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In other words, if the government decides that you aren't worth saving, medical treatment will be withheld from you. If the government decides that your children are not worth saving, the government will withhold treatment from them.
Can you imagine the impact this provision is going to have on organizations like St. Jude's Children's Research Centers? How many children will the feds give up on due to what the bureaucrats rule a "hopeless diagnosis?"
For those of you who voted for "change," congratulations! You got it.
But, who will be the hardest hit? In the beginning, it will be the elderly.
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).
The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.
In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.
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But the socialists who support this abomination claim that individuals will "benefit in younger years and sacrifice later." Until the inefficiancy that is inherent in federal bureaucracies catches up and the available care needs to be rationed further. Then, the "hopeless diagnosis" will be a death sentence for patients of all ages.
Why was it hidden in this pork-laden spending bill?
Here's why:
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
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For an administration that claims to be the most transparent of all time, they sure do seem to be hiding alot.
We need to kill this bill before we get saddled with the nationalized health-care disasters that are Canada and Europe.
Now, some of you may think that you are going to be able to pay for private care to cover what the government denies. But don't count on it. In Europe and Canada, it is illegal to get private care because that makes the system "unfair towards the rich." How long before the socialist Barack Obama and his socialist allies in Congress get that rule passed?
Contact your Representatives and Senators now and ask them to kill this bill before it is too late.
You can access the complete article on-line here:
Ruin Your Health With The Obama Stimulus PlanBetsy McCaughey
Bloomberg.com
February 9, 2009
And you can find your Congressional delegation contact information on-line here:
Congressional Email Directory
